The commission also took a stand against two House bills before the governor that would forbid state employers from extending domestic partner benefits to employees, which the City of Kalamazoo offers. The commission asked the governor to veto the two bills.

Commissioners and residents who spoke Monday said that the state, with all three pieces of legislation, is interfering with local control and community values.

"This is bad legislation," Mayor Bobby Hopewell said, speaking specifically of the bill that would overturn Kalamazoo's expanded anti-discrimination ordinance, House Bill 5039. Kalamazoo isn't alone in opposing the bill. The cities of Ann Arbor, East Lansing and Lansing have passed a similar resolutions.

"This is wrong to intervene in communities that have been given the right to govern. It's wrong to take away the most important responsibility you all have in our community for our society and that's voting," Hopewell said.

But House Bill 5039, introduced in October by Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, seeks to bar a state agency or local government from adopting an ordinance or regulation that gives protections to a class not specifically included in the state's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which does not offer protection on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Any current ordinance that offers such protection, such as in city of Kalamazoo, would be also void.

Amy Hunter, chairwoman of the Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality, a group that pushed for the expanded protections called McMillin's bill an "egregious overreach."

Kalamazoo residents "voted overwhelmingly in favor of a city that values all of its citizens including its gay and transgender citizens. House Bill 5039 would strip Kalamazoo of the people's will. It's an egregious overreach ... that has no positive affect for the citizens of Kalamazoo or the state at large," Hunter said.

Cheri Bell, a staff member for Rep. Sean McCann, D-Kalamazoo, said the lawmaker does not support the bill, calling it "legislation that would move Kalamazoo backward."

McCann also voted against the bills prohibiting public employers from offering to domestic partner benefits, House Bills 4770 and 4771.